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Wednesday, August 26, 2015

It is an absolute disgrace that even after recent events in Mexico the Obama administration continues to prop up one of Latin America’s most corrupt and repressive political regimes. For instance, the State Department’s 2014 Human Rights Report openly protects Peña Nieto from international scrutiny and flat-out lies when it states that there are no reports of political prisoners, detainees or assassinations and that the Mexican government “generally respects” freedom of speech and assembly.

The supervising officer for that report, Roberta Jacobson, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, has been nominated by Obama to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Mexico. While systematically turning a blind eye to the humanitarian crisis in Mexico, Jacobson has been quick to condemn much lesser human rights violations in Cuba. It is time to drop the double standard and put an end once and for all to the bloody complicity of the United States with a government which systematically massacres, silences and imprisons innocent civilians.

We hear about Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela all the time, but Mexico needs the spotlight as well. It will not, however, ever receive that sort of attention from the U.S. government. Too much is riding on relative political and economic stability.

So I understand and sympathize with what Ackerman is arguing. But what can the United States government do that won't make the situation worse? If the Obama administration started going after Peña Nieto, would the result be positive or at least neutral for economic growth, drug trafficking, and undocumented immigration?